Kathleen Schell, assistant professor, received the Research Dissemination Award for a project, “Better Blood Pressure for Better Patient Care”; alumna Linda Laskowski Jones, a vice president at Christiana Care Health System, won the founder's Marie Hippensteel Lingemen Award for Excellence in Nursing Practice; and 2006 graduate Lauren Bieri won the society's Pillar of Service Award.
Kathleen Schell
The Research Dissemination Award recognizes those who have made a major contribution to the nursing profession by making research available in a format that is usable, helpful and provides information that benefits nurses and others.
The research focused on the accuracy of noninvasive blood pressure measurements with emphasis on the differences of blood pressure readings when using the forearm and the upper arm. Schell was the principal investigator of the blood pressure project, and Linda Bucher, professor of nursing, and a group of nurses at Christiana Care also were active in two studies, each involving more than 200 patients.
“Blood pressure readings are very important in determining patient care, and health care providers frequently used the forearm to take blood pressure readings if the upper arm was inaccessible due to injury, surgery or because available cuffs did not fit obese upper arms,” Schell said. “It was commonly thought that blood pressure measurements taken at either the upper arm or forearm were interchangeable, but little actual research had been carried out. What our research discovered was that the readings were different and that forearm pressures are typically higher but not always. Differences vary from person to person.”
“For accurate readings, the patient's position--upright, sitting or lying down--the placement and size of the cuff, the position of the forearm are all important factors,” Schell said.
She is now looking at anatomical differences in arms to learn if significant differences in blood pressure using the upper arm and forearm can be predicted.
Most importantly, protocols, based on research, were developed for taking blood pressure measurements at the upper arm, forearm, calf and thigh, Schell said. These were disseminated to health care providers locally and nationally and are being put into practice.
Schell, Bucher and other team members have been presenters at more than a dozen conferences and meetings, and the findings were published in the American Journal of Critical Care, the DNA Reporter and the American Association of Critical Care Nurses News.
Schell, who joined the UD faculty in 1992, is a graduate of Indiana University of Pennsylvania, received a master's degree from UD and her doctorate in nursing education from Widener University. Schell, whose mother is a nurse, said that she always wanted to be a nurse and to teach, and now she is doing both.
Linda Laskowski Jones
Jones, vice president of emergency, trauma and aeromedical services at Christiana Care, received one of Sigma Theta Tau International's founder's awards, which “recognize extraordinary excellence.”
Graduating from UD in 1983, Jones received her master's degree as a cardiopulmonary clinical nurse specialist in 1988, a certificate of nursing administration in 1993 and studied pharmacology in 1996. “I just keep coming back to the University of Delaware,” she said.
She also has taught courses on trauma and neuroscience to undergraduates as a supplemental faculty member and has mentored UD graduate nurses.
Jones, who was the 1994 Delaware Nurse of the Year and was president of the Delaware Board of Nursing, said helping to achieve prescriptive authority for nurse practitioners was an important accomplishment in her career.
Besides nursing, Jones' other passion is skiing, which she has been doing since she was a teenager. She and her husband met as members of the UD Emergency Care Unit and had their first date on a ski trip. She jokes that part of their wedding vows was a pledge to serve on the ski patrol at Blue Mountain in the Poconos, where they both use their skills to help injured skiers.
Jones received the Purple Merit Star, the highest meritorious service award of the National Ski Patrol, for saving a woman's life. Jones said the woman's airway was blocked after a seizure, and she had to lie down next to the woman in a toboggan and keep the suctioning of the woman's airway going while traveling down the mountainside. “I trusted my husband and another ski patroller to get us down through a field of moguls,” Jones said.
Another facet of Jones' career is the pursuit of a fellowship from the Wilderness Medical Society. This fall, she is planning to hike through the Lake Country in England and ending up in Scotland where she will attend the International Congress on Wilderness Medicine.
Lauren Bieri
Bieri, who is labor and delivery nurse for Virtua Health in Voorhees, N.J., was awarded the Pillar of Service Award for new members of Sigma Theta Tau International for her active role in the Delaware Beta Xi chapter. Bieri was inducted into the nursing society in November 2005, and she said, “It's quite an honor to receive an international award this early in my career.”
Of her undergraduate experience at Delaware, Bieri said, “UD nursing was excellent. I had wonderful professors who were enthusiastic and knowledgeable about our profession. I am so fortunate to have spent four years at UD.”
Future plans include getting married this fall to Shaun Butler. Professionally, Bieri said she is planning to get her master's degree in women's health.
Bieri was selected as the first leader intern of Beta Xi, a new position in the chapter, while still a senior at UD. She developed the first member e-mail database, which, thanks to her efforts in communicating with members, resulted in an increase in membership involvement. She also manages the mentoring and the tutoring program for undergraduate nursing students.
In addition, Bieri was the first student to be elected to the Leadership Succession Committee, which she now chairs.
She also is involved in community service with such organizations as Special Olympics and Kids into Healthcare.
The letter of recommendation from the chapter states that Bieri “is certain to be a great future leader in nursing, her community, and Sigma Theta Tau. It is with a great deal of pride and passion that we nominate Lauren for the Pillar of Service Award.”
Article by Sue Moncure